Shutter

May 16 2008 The Journal

(1hr 25mins) Starring: Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor, Megumi Okina. Director: Masayuki Ochiai

IN The Ring and its sequels, the humble video recorder whirred with demonic intent as a portal for a murderous, vengeful spectre while the mobile phone took on a similarly ghoulish role in One Missed Call.

Now, the digital camera bridges the divide between the living and dead in the American remake of the 2004 Thai horror-thriller Shutter.

Screenwriter Luke Dawson transplants the ghostly goings-on to the streets of Tokyo, where the phenomenon of spirit photography – capturing images of the departed on film – is firmly engrained in the culture.

Dawson leaves the central narrative virtually untouched, including a thrilling sequence in a darkened photographer’s studio during a power outage, where blinding camera flashes reveal a ghost stalking its disorientated prey.

Fashion photographer Benjamin Shaw (Joshua Jackson) and his wife Jane (Rachael Taylor) travel to Japan, where Ben has worked before, for a lucrative assignment.

The couple are involved in a car accident – Jane collides with a girl who steps into the middle of the road, but the figure vanishes without trace. They proceed to Tokyo where Ben will mastermind the advertising campaign, but Jane begins to suffer nightmarish visions of Megumi (Megumi Okina), the girl she is convinced they knocked down.

Ben is sceptical until Megumi’s spirit causes blurring to his photographs, thereby jeopardising the entire shoot.

Shutter is an underdeveloped reprint of a ho-hum journey into the paranormal, that wasn’t particularly scary in its original incarnation.

Jackson and Taylor don’t share any palpable screen chemistry and aside from the bravura studio sequence, director Masayuki Ochiai fails to set our pulses racing and he tips the wink far too early on the climactic twist.